Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire, #1)(31)

“I just need a change of scenery,” he’d told me. “I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

Part of me worried that he might be a plant, someone willing to turn me in at the first opportunity, but he seemed as genuinely sad and lost as I was. As time went on, my desire for company, and the security of being beside him, won out, and I agreed to take him with me.

While we were between shelters, we huddled under bridges and slept tucked around each other for warmth during the slowly cooling autumn nights. We traveled like that for a few months growing ever closer to each other as the nights became longer and colder.

One day, after we’d just settled in a new hostel, Brian disappeared. For over twenty-four hours, he was gone, and I couldn’t say for certain whether I minded or not. During the time we’d spent together, I had relished the companionship. It was refreshing to have had someone to talk to after so many months alone, even if our conversation rarely progressed much beyond the weather. We didn’t need to give the ghosts of our past a constant voice to help ease our mutual suffering.

I was honest enough with myself to know that should Brian never return, it wouldn’t affect me the way Clay’s parting had. Even the thought of the moment I’d been left alone at the motel after hurling barbed words, most of which I hadn’t meant, was enough to force tears into my eyes and cause my heart to race. The “one day” that Clay had promised didn’t seem possible anymore. I grew convinced that any reunion was out of the question and even if we met again it would once again end in heartache. After all, nothing would change so long as I was still . . . what I was. Brian was safe for me—he hadn’t infected my heart and didn’t have the power to break me the way Clay had.

The truth was that even with our growing closeness, I was well aware that Brian would be little more than a passing footnote when I looked back on my life. That certainty wasn’t enough to make me leave him behind though.

It was the middle of the following night when Brian finally returned. He climbed beside me onto the bed and tapped me to wake me up. My eyes opened, and I took in his silhouette. For a moment, I was annoyed because he’d pulled me from a dream I’d had where Clay was still by my side.

“What is it?” I asked before I was fully awake.

“Share a drink with me?” He passed me an open bottle of clear liquid.

I sniffed at the contents, uncertain because Dad had never drank—he said it was too dangerous because it dulled the senses.

Maybe a bit of dulling is exactly what I need.

“I didn’t think you were supposed to drink anymore,” I said. As his friend, I had at least a passing duty to protect him from himself. Didn’t I?

He shrugged. “I’m not, but it’s a special occasion.”

The way he said the words and the vacant expression in his eyes left me with no doubt exactly what the occasion was. It was clearly an anniversary of some kind, possibly of their wedding or maybe her death. Knowing how desperately I would want support on the anniversary of Dad’s death in a few short months, I decided that if he wanted to drink I would join him. It was the least I could do.

I took a swig of the bottle, before almost instantly coughing and spluttering as the fluid blazed down the back of my throat. The fumes raced through my nasal passage and bashed at my brain. “You like this stuff?” I coughed.

He grabbed the bottle back from me and brought it to his lips. “It’s not exactly a fine, aged whiskey, but it does the job.” He held the bottle out for me again.

I took another sip. It went down marginally easier than the first, but it still left an acrid taste in my mouth.

“She was so beautiful that night,” he murmured as I passed the bottle back to him.

I’d heard bits and pieces of the story of the accident, but he rarely spoke to me about his wife. He necked the bottle and took a long swig. Unshed tears glinted in his eyes as he looked back at me. His voice was quiet and monotone, and he stared through me and into the past.

“We were on the way home from a Christmas party. It was black tie, and she was just so goddamn beautiful in her new dress.” He shifted closer to me and rested his head on my shoulder as he spoke. The bottle exchanged hands between us readily as we both drank to forget the past. Before he’d finished his story, we’d almost emptied the bottle.

“Don’t you ever get sick and tired of feeling so fucking lonely all the time?” he slurred in my ear.

My head spun in the best possible way. I figured it was the alcohol because Brian had never made me lose control that way before. I nodded. “All the time.”

His fingers traced a path into my hair, and I giggled as it tickled my neck.

“Can you stop me from being lonely tonight?” he asked with fresh tears glossing his eyes. I nodded as I claimed his lips.

We swapped sloppy kisses, and I giggled again as my mind offered swirls of patterns behind my closed eyes. I’d never been so uninhibited, and I had to admit it was freeing.

Brian wrapped his arms around me before pushing me onto the bed and kissing me harder. The sensation of his body pressed against mine was so strange that I couldn’t help laughing louder. I was only used to kissing Clay. Only knew the taste of our mingled tongues. The way Brian fit against me was different. The differences were almost enough to make me pull away, but the warmth of skin-to-skin contact with another human was too much for me to resist. I’d lost so much and had been so alone, that I was determined not to overthink anything any longer. That was the point of the multiple sips of alcohol I’d consumed. Now I was determined that if Brian wanted me, I wouldn’t refuse.